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Fabulous Fashion Tributes

What better way to prep for September’s fashion parade than with a peek at some of the season’s best-dressed picture books? Michelle Obama might have made Isabel Toledo a household name in 2009—who can forget the lemongrass suit that Mrs. O wore on her husband’s Inauguration Day?—but the Cuban-born designer has been a rare arbiter of style for more than two decades. Published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, on display until September 26, Isabel Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out (Yale University Press) looks at her journey from a young innovator working with jersey and lace to the creator of gracious collections for Anne Klein, colored as always by her husband, Ruben Toledo**’s, charming fashion illustrations. For diehards who can’t ever get enough Margiela (you know who you are), Maison Martin Margiela (Rizzoli) was designed by the elusive Belgian-born designer, and is the first book about the house and its history ever to be published—a must for all Ligne 6 lovers. And Olivier Theyskens: The Other Side of the Picture (Assouline), with an introduction by _Vogue’_s Fashion News/Features Director, Sally Singer,** brings to light—through dramatic backstage images, runway shots, and still lifes—the myriad accomplishments of one of the industry’s most beloved young masters. For those interested in fashion nostalgia, Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel/Summer 62 (Steidl) offers an intimate and surprisingly joyous look at the making of one of the designer’s later collections. Through candid photographs by Douglas Kirkland, a focused, passionate, and smiling Mademoiselle emerges between fittings and in the hours after another impeccable show. Honoring a woman of comparable influence, Madeleine Vionnet (Rizzoli) features previously unseen sketches from the archives, as well as stunning photographs by Horst P. Horst and Edward Steichen of the seminal dresses cut on the bias that she created in the tumultuous 1930s––a reminder that women need not sacrifice style in troublesome times. From the authors Scot D. Ryerssonand Michael Orlando Yaccarinoof I__n__finite Variety: The Life and Legend of the Marchesa Casati (required reading for culture connoisseurs), The Marchesa Casati: Portraits of a Muse (Abrams) is like a visual biography of the eccentric, cheetah-loving Italian who inspired nearly every great artist of her time, from Man Ray and Cecil Beaton to Jack Kerouac andPaul Poiret**.** “I want to be a living work of art,” she famously said. Flipping through this book, filled with paintings of her by Kees van Dongen, Giovanni Boldini**,** and Augustus John, one gets the sense that she succeeded in doing just that. One of our favorites, of course, is Extreme Beauty in Vogue (Skira) which takes a closer (much closer) look at the definition of beauty through the pictures taken by American Vogue's greatest photographers (from Helmut Newton to Irving Penn) over the last eight decades. For a more contemporary, hands-on experience, the CFDA’s American Fashion Cookbook(Assouline) has more than 100 recipes for fabulous fare from designers’ own kitchen confidentials. On the menu is Diane von Furstenberg**’s Saturday Night Chicken, Carolina Herrera’s Pommes Toupinel, and Zac Posen’**s Great Grandma Jeannie’s Butterscotch Wafers. Style and sustenance—what more could one want for the coming season?